Pakistan: 50-MW project completed

Hamburg, 9 January 2013. Sand storms with wind speeds of 30 metres a second followed by heavy rain and hail are just some of the conditions under which Nordex has been installing “Jhimpir”, its first wind farm in Pakistan with 33 1.5 MW turbines, over the last few months. The investor in the project, which is located 100 kilometres north-east of Karachi, is fertiliser producer Fauji (FFC Energy Limited). With the completion of “Jhimpir”, Nordex now holds 52% of the country’s market and is thus the market leader. In addition, it has signed contracts for further wind farms each comprising 20 N100/2500 turbines with a total output of 250 MW. The next two projects are about to be commenced, with a further two to be launched this year. The customers are again the Fauji Group as well as Gul Ahmed Energy, Metro Power and Yunus Energy, which is affiliated with Lucky Cement.

The “Jhimpir” project is attracting considerable attention within the country: on Christmas Eve 2012 Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari inaugurated the first Nordex wind farm in Pakistan. Before, also developers and investors watched very closely to see how the first major wind power project progressed and were impressed by the fact that it was completed ahead of schedule despite the extreme weather conditions. The reason for this is that Pakistan’s electricity industry can no longer meet the growing demand for energy, meaning that blackouts are common. Accordingly, Karachi is now committed to expanding renewable energies. The fixed feed-in remuneration of around US$ 0.1466 per kWh for a period of 20 years for wind-produced electricity is making the market attractive for investors.

“Jhimpir” was initially overseen by Nordex’s subsidiary in Beijing. However, the company now has a separate local company in Islamabad. In conjunction with its customer FFC Energy Limited, Nordex is also assuming social obligations in the country. In addition to providing local staff with training for the project, water filters have been procured for the general population, with new sanitary facilities, furniture and water supplies fitted to a school. Nordex has also ensured local manufacturing content for this project by having the towers assembled by Descon in Karachi.